


money, success, fame, glamour

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, in which: almost nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2019-09-06 21:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: Two vignettes in the life of Herbert West, immediately before the movie.





	money, success, fame, glamour

Herbert West arrives to meet his mentor at 3:55 p.m. on that last day. He makes a point out of being punctual, even though he and Dr. Gruber have become almost friends in their time working together. West wants to show his respect for the older man, to prove he can drag himself away from his work and arrive on time.

Today he's brought with him a sample of the reformulated reagent. He's been tinkering with it all afternoon, and he thinks he may have found the correct electrolyte ratio at last. But he's technically not allowed to test it on formerly-living subjects without Gruber supervising in some capacity.

His briefcase taps against his leg as he makes his way down the hall to Gruber's office. After sitting all day on the hard lab stool, alternately bending over the microscope and perching on his tip-toes to drip chemicals into the distilling apparatus, his leg is shaky under him, the long muscles of his left thigh tense and hard to the touch. If he wants to be able to stand tomorrow, he'll be spending tonight with a heating pad on his lap to try and relax the muscle even a tiny bit. Herbert resents deeply having to give in to his body's whims like that, but as Gruber has told him again and again, he can't keep writing checks his body can't cash.

Herbert smiles to himself, rather grimly. Hans Gruber deserves a Nobel Prize for his work, and yet here he is mentoring a disabled American boy. How many people would kill to be in his place?

The light in Gruber's office is off, unusually, and Herbert pauses before setting his briefcase down to knock.

“Dr. Gruber?” he calls out.

There's an indistinct noise from inside; the shuffling of papers, perhaps, or the turning of a book page. Herbert knocks again. “Dr. Gruber?”

The noise repeats. He tries the knob and finds it unlocked. “Sir, it's Herbert West, may I come in?”

He opens the door and steps inside.

After that, he doesn't remember much.

A note: In his rush to Gruber's side, Herbert drops his cane. When the police come to arrest him, he asks to have it back. His leg is itching and burning from the inside from sitting so long on the hard floor. They refuse to give it back, at first on the basis it could be used as a weapon. Much later, when he _finally_ leaves the institution the Swiss legal system shuffled him into, he asks what happened to his cane – it was a gift from Gruber in the first place.

He never does get it back.

* * *

Returning to the United States after three years in Europe is interesting, to say the least.

The flight into New York is agonizing. His left calf seizes up over the Atlantic, and, not wanting to disturb the dozing businessman next to him (he has no energy left, today, to argue with anyone), he sits gazing out the dark window in silent pain. When he puts his hand to the thick plastic, he can feel the cold air outside pressing back. The stars blur by in streaks of light, and he finds himself looking into a well of darkness as deep, as sweet, as death.

Gruber hadn't been dead long when Herbert found him. Not even long enough to begin to cool. But Herbert wonders what he saw beyond the wall that divides the dead from the living, if he saw anything. Before the policemen broke down the door, he thought he heard Gruber trying to speak – whether or not Gruber knew West was there, he can never know, nor is it possible to determine what he might have been trying to tell his student.

The loss of that knowledge weighs on him. He could have at least done that for Gruber – could have at least recorded his last words. But that pair of fools with nightsticks pulled him away before he could write down even a sketch of what Gruber might have been saying. He tried to fix the memory of Gruber's last moments in his mind, to preserve it for recording later, but it faded away too quickly.

He does not sleep during the flight. He leans against the cool plastic of the bulkhead and his left hand absently massages his tense thigh. The pain is immense, changing its shape from moment to moment. The muscles of his foot twitch and his toes jump of their own accord inside their black sock and leather shoe. The pain in his thigh has a thousand thousand needle-sharp teeth that prickle at each nerve ending. It feels as though a band of hot lead is wrapped around his leg. It trickles down along his calf, and the nerves pulsate torturously.

No one really knows what is the matter with him. His nervous system is in perfect condition. His bones are quite healthy. Even the muscles are in good shape. Yet his leg still hurts.

The human body is a poorly-made machine. He wants to know how it works. How the processes that make it run begin.

He wishes he could have asked Gruber if there was still pain after death.

Herbert West considers himself first and foremost a scientist.

But he's only human.

**Author's Note:**

> At this point I don't remember if I posted this on Tumblr or not, but if I did it would've been in April 2014. Also in the original document this is separated as chapters, but they're very short so I just put them together.
> 
> Pairs well with [this Re-Animator fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399126) I wrote a little earlier that year.


End file.
